909 



THE BULL-RUN ROUT 

SCENES ATTENDING 

THE 

FIRST CLASH OF VOLUNTEERS 
IN THE CIVIL WAR 



BY 

EDWARD HENRY CLEMENT 



CAMBRIDGE 
JOHN WILSON AND SON 

SantiOTBttg Press 
1909 



£4-7 Z. 



From the 

Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society 

FOR March, 1909. 



OFT 
DEC 7 1909 



THE BULL -RUN ROUT 



A LITTLE paper written years ago by a lately deceased brother 
of mine ^ describing the rout of the battle of Bull Run as he 
saw it with the eyes of a boy and a boy's love of the marvel- 
lous seems to me to possess some value historically for the in- 
timate, unconscious picturing, along with it, of the state of the 
public mind on the eve of the so-called " great uprising." It 
seems to illustrate well the truth that the great Civil War, as a 
war, was really a surprise, — to the people of the North at 
least ; that the idea persisting up to the day of the battle of Bull 
Run at the back of the mind of everybody was that in some 
way the war-cloud would blow over, that the actual shock of 
contending armies and the pouring out of blood of citizens in 
civil war would be prevented or in some way avoided. The 
occasion of the trip to Washington, to carry dainties to a 
soldier brother, the occasion of the extension of the partly 
sight-seeing journey to the first battle-field of the great war, 
the commission from the horror-struck authorities at home to 
find and bring back from Virginia the body of the first Massa- 
chusetts soldier to fall, — all prove the nai'vet^ of the popular 
conceptions at that time of what it was to enter upon war. 
This Chelsea boy,^ whose body my brother was bidden by the 
mayor of their native place to recover and send home at all 
costs, was but the first of the fated host of three hundred and 

1 Andrew J. Clement, First Sergeant, Company M, First Massachusetts Cav- 
alry ; died at Morton, Pennsylvania, February 27, 1908. 

2 rhilander Crowell, Company II, First Massachusetts Volunteers. 



4 

sixty thousand young men about to die for their country in 
the ensuing four years. I remember distinctly the consterna- 
tion of the community when it was found that the Chelsea 
company of the First Massachusetts Infantry had been in the 
sharp action which was the first engagement in the ap- 
proacliing collision of the main armies, and that men had act- 
ually been shot and killed. The sickening realization was akin 
to that feeling my eldest brother^ in that regiment had con- 
fessed to me when I was visiting him at the assembling and 
training camp at Readville and the new army wagons in their 
fresh blue paint and white canvas arrived on the scene in long 
array. " It looks as though we were really going," he remarked 
ruefully. 

I find a pretty complete picture of the psychology of those 
bewildered and dreadful weeks and mouths in two speeches of 
Wendell Phillips in that series of wonderful orations in which 
he rode the storm seeking to direct it to great issues. Some 
of these speeches I had the fortune to hear. I have been look- 
ing up certain things I heard delivered in that deliberate utter- 
ance of his with its polished periods, precise and penetrating as 
rifle-shots, yet freighted with passion, white-hot with intense 
conviction. It is only necessary to compare these two speeches 
of Phillips's to show how men's minds tossed and turned and 
agonized in those days, — the minds of honest, independent, 
fearless, conscientious men, too. In a speech of April 9, 1861, 
at New Bedford, Wendell Phillips was in Cassandra vein. 
Besides many other epigrammatic deliverances to similar effect, 
he said : 

Inaugurate war, we know uot where it will end ; we are in no con- 
dition to fight. The South is" poor ; we are rich. The poor man can 
do twice the injury to the rich man that the rich man can do to the 
poor. War will start up every man whose livelihood hangs upon trade, 
intensifying him into a compromiser. Those guns fired on Fort Sum- 
ter are only to frighten the North into a compromise. If the Adminis- 
tration provokes war it is a trick, — nothing else. It is the masterly 
cunning of that devil of compromise, the Secretary of State. He is 
not mad enough to let the States run into battle. He knows that the 
age of bullets is over. If a gun is fired in Southern waters it is fired 
at the wharves of New York, at the bank-vaults of Boston, at the 
money of the North. It is meant to alarm. It is policy, not sincerity. 

1 William R. Clement, Company II; died at Clielsea, July 18,1896. 



Thus in New Bedford, April 9 ; and no wonder that the local 
reporter records that the lecture was interrupted with frequent 
hisses. Twelve days later, on a Sunday, April 21, the same 
day that Fletcher Webster addressed an out-door meeting in 
State Street, speaking from the Old State House balcony, 
Phillips addressed an excited, crowded meeting in Music Hall. 
That day Phillips was the prophet militant.' He began by 
saying that he gave this war a welcome " hearty and hot." 
He would not recant or retract anything, he said ; he needed 
everything he had been saying to justify so momentous an evil 
as civil war. 

I rejoice before God to-day for every word that I have spoken coun- 
selliug peace ; but I rejoice also with an especially profound gratitude, 
that now, the first time in my anti-slavery life, I speak under the stars 
and stripes, and welcome the tread of Massachusetts men marshalled 
for war. No matter what the past has been or said ; to-day the slave 
asks God for a sight of this banner, and counts it the pledge of his 
redemption. Hitherto it may have meant what you thought, or what I 
did; to-day it represents sovereignty and justice. The only mistake 
that I have made was in supposing Massachusetts wholly choked with 
cotton-dust and cankered with gold. The South thought her patience 
and generous willingness for peace were cowardice ; to-day shows the 
mistake. ... 

All winter long I have acted with that party which cried for peace. 
The anti-slavery enterprise to which I belong started with peace written 
on its banner. We imagined that the age of bullets was over ; that the 
age of ideas had come; . . . The South opened this door [to the 
solution] with cannon-shot, and Lincoln shows himself at the door. 
The war, then, is not aggressive, but in self-defence, and Washington 
has become the Thermopylfe of Liberty and Justice. Rather than sur- 
render that Capital, cover every square foot of it with a living body ; 
crowd it with a million of men, and empty every bank vault at the 
North to pay the cost.^ 

This speech was surely worth thousands of men to the govern- 
ment, but such is the constitutional cowardice of professional 
managing politicians that those of that day thought it prudent, 
for the sake of winning over to loyalty the so-called War 
Democrats, to have the speech suppressed, and all the docile 
daily papers did suppress it. It was circulated to the number of 
a hundred thousand as a supplement extra of the weekly called 
" The Anglo- African." Even so late as October of that year 
1 W. Phillips, Speeches (Boston, 1884), 396-400. 



the Republican State Convention, according to an exultant edi- 
torial of the " Boston Daily Advertiser," " certainly disavowed 
any intention of endorsing the fatal doctrines announced by 
Mr. Sumner in that convention," and also buried Rev. James 
Freeman Clarke's resolution in favor of freeing the slaves, as 
the esteemed contemporary of that day predicted, " never to 
rise again." By another year the Emancipation proclamation 
had issued, and three months later Massachusetts idealists 
speaking through Wendell Phillips could say : " A blundering 
and corrupt cabinet has made it at last an inevitable necessity, 
— Liberty or Death. The cowardice of Webster's followers in 
the cabinet has turned his empty-rhetoric into solemn truth ; 
and now honest men are not only at liberty, but bound to live 
and die under his motto, — ' Liberty and Union, now and for- 
ever, one and inseparable.' " The country's baffling search to 
find its ground, its rising determination to yield thus far and 
no farther, the stand taken at last, the great defeat that first 
befell, the high idealism, the spirit of the hour, — all are seen 
in the brief, intimate account written for the family circle at 
home of the experiences and feelings of one representative 
Boston youth of twenty, soon after to be a full-fledged three 
years' man, a hero who rode in the First Massachusetts Cav- 
alry from Virginia to Florida and back again. 

" The First Massachusetts Lifantry was the first regiment 
to leave the State for three years' service in the national 
cause ; and, indeed, is said to have been the first three years' 
regiment in the service of the United States." To the call 
from the War Department of Ma}" 8, 1861, for volunteers for 
three years, " the First Regiment immediately and unani- 
mously responded," though the other regiments which had 
gone from the State were enlisted for three months only. The 
First left Boston on June 15, 1861, and reached Washington 
on the 18th, and the next day marched, with the temperature at 
90°, to a camp beyond Georgetown and was at once put under 
strictly military discipline, being there in the enemy's country. 
It was not till July 16 that the regiment marched into Virginia 
with three other regiments, and the next night bivouacked 
at Centreville. 

The battle of Blackburn's Ford, July 18, in which the 
Chelsea soldiers fell, was an affair of outposts, resulting from 



General McDowell's purpose to " feel of the enerav." It was 
begun by shots from the Rebels posted in the woods border- 
ing Bull Run. Both sides were soon at work with artillery. 
Companies G and H of the First Regiment had advanced 
through a gully, or dry ravine, leading into Bull Run, until 
they found themselves exposed to a murderous fire from three 
different directions. For at least half an hour they remained 
in this position unable to advance or retreat. The New York 
Twelfth on their flank fell back, and a general retrograde 
movement soon followed, with a stand taken at CentreviUe. 
The only valuable result of the reconnoissance was the bring- 
ing under fire for the first time of some thousands of raw 
troops. Thirteen men of the First Regiment were killed, 
and as many more wounded and taken prisoners. Rev. War- 
ren H. Cudworth, chaplain of the regiment, published in 1866 
a very full and lively history of its operations. 



THE BULI^RUN MUSKET. 

A single dead soldier of the Uuion army was an object of intense 
pubhc mterest up to the date of the battle of Bull Run in July 1861 

There were two lads of us who left Boston to visit our brothers — 
both of whom were in the army and in the same company. We 
expected to find the Army at Washington ; and we each carried a boK 
of dainties to delight our brothers with. On reaching Washington we 
were sorely disappointed to find that the army had started on its mlrch 
to Richmond ; and that no civilians were allowed to follow — not even 
to cross the Potomac into Virginia. So there was nothing to do but 
see the sights in Washington and return to our homes. But we had 
been there only two days when the news came of a fight or skirmish on 
July 18'" at Blackburn's Ford, where several were killed, and one of 
the dead was the brother of my companion. It was a terrible blow to 
my friend, and a great shock for me. 

We immediately telegraphed home, and at once came the reply « Get 
the body, if you can, and send it home." Well, we two lads went to 
the War Department and I suppose our sorrowful tale moved them 
with compassion, for they gave each of us a pass to go to the front to 
get the body of the dead soldier. I Ve got that pass stowed away now, 
among my papers, as a War curiosity. It reads, 

Allow the bearer, Mr. Andrew J. Clement, to pass the lines and ?o to the 
iront for the body of a friend. 

DUAKE De Ka,Y 

Aid de Cam/ J. 



Later in the war, the death of a soldier was of too little importance 
to awaken such sympathy at Headq^uarters. Indeed, two days later, 
there were thousands killed within two miles of the spot where those 
killed in this skirmish were buried. After much difficulty, we hired a 
light wagon in which my friend rode, while I got a seat in an army 
wagon that was taking out supplies. It was just midnight ou Saturday 
July 20"' when we started from Willard's Hotel on Pennsylvania 
Avenue. There was a full moon, and the night was lovely. I was all 
excitement. I was going to join the army. I should see my brother, 
and perhaps I should see the big battle everybody was talking about as 
soon to be fought. 

Well, I saw all that I expected to see and a good deal more. As the 
horses toiled painfully all that night over the rough and hilly roads, 
I little thought that on the very next night I should be more painfully 
trudging back over that very route footsore and weary, a gun on my 
shoulder — and ready to fight if the victorious enemy came up with us. 
Yet such was the case, and the gun in the hall is the one that I carried 
to Washington after the battle of Bull Run, July 2P', 1861. 

Of course the ride that beautiful night was too exciting for sleep. 
It was just after daybreak, when we were taking a hasty breakfast at 
a small tavern, that we heard the first boom of a heavy gun. This was 
the gun that opened the great battle of Bull Run. We were yet six 
miles away from the army — and all were impatient to reach our 
destination. The horses were kept at their best working pace, and 
when we had gone three miles we met troops marching towards us. 
These were certain regiments that wouldn't fight because the ninety 
days of their term of service had just expired. They looked thoroughly 
ashamed of themselves, and marched in great disorder. The officer 
with our wagon, and the soldier who drove it, both scoffed at them and 
called them sneaks and cowards ; and, cowards as they were, they 
did n't resent the insults. For myself, I felt as though they all deserved 
shooting when they got to Washington. 

An hour later we reached Centreville and looked down on the battle- 
field. Hastily finding where my friend's dead brother was buried, I 
left him to his mournful task of recovering the corpse while I went to 
find my own brother whom I yet hoped to meet alive. But it was n't 
an easy task. The line of battle was long; and, in spite of my inqui- 
ries, I went wrong. I went to the right wing only to find that the regi- 
ment I sought was probably away off" on the left wing. Nobody 
seemed able to give exact information, and everybody wanted to know 
what a boy in black clothes and a straw hat was doing on the battle- 
field. Once I went up and sat down in the rear of a battery of light 
artillery to watch the effect of the firing, and the Capt. drove me off 
with terrible oaths. But I went around a small farm house and crept 



9 

back again, and saw the grapeshot scatter the " rebs." And so I went 
on from point to point, staring and asking questions, and being stared 
at and questioned in return. At length I learned that the regiment I 
wanted was at the extreme left. So off I started, already weary from 
loss of sleep, excitement and tramping under the hot sun. 

Arriving at the left, I again was attracted by a battery in action, and 
it was while I stood entranced with excitement that my brother discovered 
me. His regiment was lying in the bush close by supporting this very 
battery. Never was a man more surprised than was he at that moment. 
He supposed I was at home in Boston. But, before he would talk, he 
made me go into the woods and lie down with the soldiers so as to be 
in less danger. And there I crawled around and shook hands with 
nearly a hundred men whom I had known all my life. Many were the 
questions I answered, and scores of messages were given me to take 
home to parents and friends. The boys seemed very sad — for a mem- 
ber had been killed in this company only three days before, and they 
expected to be actively fighting again at any moment. At length my 
brother insisted that I should go back to Centreville out of danger, and 
I started with a heavy heart. But secretly I resolved to try to go to 
Richmond with the army, for I felt sure it would only take a few days. 
Up to that time it seemed to be victory for us ; and I did n't believe it 
could possibly be otherwise. So I went back to Centreville. I was 
very hungry as well as tired. It was now past four o'clock in the 
afternoon. 

I soon found a group of sick officers who were about to dine off of 
boiled beef close by the army wagon in which I had come from "Wash- y^*^ 
ington. They asked me to join them. " I had just got fairly seated \' 
when the astounding news came that our army was defeated and was 
retreating. I did n't believe it ; but I rushed to the hilltop to see for 
myself. Down there on the plain, where I had been in the morning, 
there was certainly much dust and confusion. Just then fresh troops, 
the reserves, started to go down, but even to my inexperienced eye 
it was plain that they went in bad order and went too late. It was 
there that I saw the general who wore two hats — one crushed over the 
other — and who was reported in newspaper accounts of the scene as 
being very drunk that day. He certainly appeared decidedly drunk at 
that moment. 

Wild with excitement, I rushed down hill too ; but long before I got 
where I had been a few hours before, I met the rush of panic stricken men 
coming pell-mell from the field. To resist this rush was impossible 
and worse than useless. Wagons driven at full speed came with the 
men. Shouted curs^ ^lled the air. Wagons broke down, and, cutting 
the harnesses, men mounted the horses and rode ofE toward Centreville. 
Muskets were thrown away and filled the road for a long distance. It 

I 



10 

was there that I picked up my gun, begged a pocket full of ammuni- 
tion, and resolved to do my share when the terrible Black Horse Cavalry 
reached us — for it was reported that they were coming at full speed. 
Ere long I reached Centreville again, and left the rush to look for my 
wagon. It had gone, long before, in the grand stampede for "Wash- 
ington. Tliat did n't worry me much then — I thought I would find my 
brother again ; and fight in company with the boys I grew up with. 
So I waited and waited at Centreville till the sun got low. I saw at 
length that it would be useless to try to find anybody. There were 
several roads; and all were full of disorganized troops. 

But the first mad rush was over. All the army did not run. / did 
not run a step. It was nearly sunset when I left Centreville ; and, 
as I was terribly hungry, I stopped, after going about a mile, and joined 
two of N. Y, 69th regiment who were having a regular feast out of a 
broken down and abandoned sutler's wagon. I remember that I ate 
a whole can of roast chicken and many sweet biscuits, and washed the 
whole down with some sherry wine drank from the bottle — my first 
experience in wine drinking. 

Much refreshed, I took up my musket and started for Washington 
with an oddly mixed crowd of gay militia uniforms representing parts 
of many regiments. Yet there were still behind us good, orderly, full 
regiments, that stayed in Centreville till after midnight and came into 
Washington late the next day in fine marching order. They did not 
run, and my brother's regiment was one of them.* It was 10 p. m. 
when I reached Fairfax Court House. There I rested, sitting on a 
rail fence, as a motley crowd poured by, each squad saying that the 
Black Horse Cavalry was coming. So I clung to my musket, though 
my shoulders began to get a little sore. It was after midnight when I 
started again. The night was very dark, for heavy clouds obscured 
the moon. The road, very rough in itself, was now full of mate- 
rials thrown out of wagons. There were shovels, pickaxes, boxes, 
barrels, iron mess-kettles, muskets, knapsacks, and all sorts of litter 
that soldiers could throw away, and over these and the loose stones of 
the rough road we stumbled in the dark, amid choking dust, and up 
and down the long rolling hills that the army marched over so often 
afterwards during that terrible war. Still, I well remember that it 
seemed to me a sort of wild picnic ; and I would clutch my gun and 
feel of my cartridges in a very determined mood to defend Washington 
to the death. 

-^ "Wearily the night wore on ; and steadily I tramped, talking in the 
dark, from time to time, with strangers — men from all parts of the 
Union whom 1 did n't see then and probably never saw afterwards. 
Bad as it was to march in the dust, it was still worse when it began 
to ruin just before daybreak. Gently it came at first ; and slowly 



X, 

11 

the dust became a thick paste of slippery mud. Steadily the storm 
increased till it became a downpour. I had on a thin black summer 
suit, a straw hat, and a pair of low-cut thin shoes and white stockings. 
When day broke we were a bedraggled, thoroughly soaked, mud- 
stained party. Of all that vast crowd probably I presented the worst 
appearance, for I was the only citizen in that section of the crowd. I 
bantered jokes with such as were in joking mood, but most of the 
crowd were now silent and weary. All along the road lay men asleep 
in the pouring rain. There were blood blisters on my feet, but never 
once did I stop except to get a drink of water at a brook just after day- 
light. The rain now fell in torrents ; we were literally wading in mud 
and water. ' 

The thirty miles from Centreville to Washington seemed three times 
that distance. My gun grew more and more heavy, and I shifted it 
constantly. It was about ten o'clock Monday forenoon when I reached 
the Virginia end of Long Bridge. A strong guard was posted there to 
stop the troops ; for Washington was already full of fugitive soldiers. 
Forcing my way through a vast mob of shouting, cursing soldiers, I 
reached the officer in charge, and got a rough reception. First he 
doubted my pass; next he wanted to take away my musket, but I 
protested that I had saved it from the enemy ; and at length he al- 
lowed me to pass carrying the gun I had so honestly won. I went 
down Pennsylvania Avenue much stared at as I limped along. Reach- 
ing my hotel, I took a bath and turned into a good bed, thinking of 
my brother and the thousands of other soldiers who were out in the 
rain and many of whom would perhaps have no bed to turn into for 
three years ; for there were a few three years regiments even then. 

The next day, to my great joy, my brother's regiment marched in 
and over to Georgetown heights ; and, after visiting them there, I sent 
my gun home by Adams Ex. and took the train for Boston. Said my 
father, when I got home, " Well, I think you have got enough of war 
now." " No, sir," I said, and in less than thirty days I had enlisted ; 
and three years from the date of the first battle of Bull Run I was 
skirmishing about six miles from Richmond — three years — and yet 
I had n't quite got to Richmond. 

That Bull-Run musket is th6 only war weapon left in the family, 
and I hope you will keep it in memory of the good work I was willing 
to do with it, even before I was a soldier. 

Dr. Samuel A. Gueen then said : 

I have listened with intense interest to Mr. Clement's 
paper, as I was not only present at the skirmish therein 
described, but as Assistant Surgeon of the First Massacliusetts 



12 

Volunteers it was my professional duty to look after the 
wounded on that occasion. I remember vividly the events of 
that day, July 18, 1861, not only because it was the first time 
that I ever was under fire, but because it was the greatest 
fight that up to that time the Union arm}'^ had fought. I 
remember, too, the proud record made by the First Massachu- 
setts in that preliminary skirmish. In each of two compa- 
nies, — G and H, — the regiment lost six men ; and Company 
H — to which Mr. Clement's paper relates — had more men 
wounded than killed. Nor were these the only losses met by 
the Old First in that memorable action. The wounded men 
came under my professional charge, and they received such 
care as could be given them on the field of battle, scanty 
though it was. The men who fell iuthat skimiish 3- some of 
them my friends and all my acquaiimnces— Tfeicirapr^ions 
on my mind so deep that I have since accepted without 
hesitation the fact that " war is hell." This action of July 18 
was only a skirmish that preceded the first battle of Bull Run, 
which was fought three days later on July 21. The armies 
contending on that day were commanded, respectively, by 
General McDowell and General Beauregard ; and the result 
is now a matter of history. 

As an instance of the changes which the whirligig of time 
brings round, I will relate a fact ^^fifc© is purely personal. In 
December, 1878, I was appointed a member of the Commission 
authorized by Congress to investigate the Yellow Fever Epi- 
demic of that year, and sessions were held in several southern 
cities, including New Orleans. While the Commission was in 
session in that city, General Beauregard was a regular attend- 
ant at the meetings, and for some days I was thrown much 
with him, and we talked over togetlier the campaign of 1861. 
In answer to one of my questions, why the southern army did 
not follow up their victory and capture the city of Washing- 
ton, he replied that President Davis was strongly of the opin- 
ion that such an event would produce a revulsion of feeling 
on the part of northern sympathizers with the south and thus 
would defeat their own purpose. 

A few years later, in the summer of 1883, I was a member 
of the Board of Visitors appointed by the President to make * 
the annual examination at Annapolis, Maryland, where I was 
thrown into intimate relations with General McDowel^^ I 



13 

slept under the same roof with him and ate at the same table, 
and often we discussed military matters. These two episodes 
in my life are now pleasant events to remember. 

I was deeply impressed with General McDowell's strict 
abstinence from the use of champagne and other alcoholic 
liquors. Receiving his early education in France, one would 
suppose that, like the French boys who were his companions, 
he would drink Bordeaux wine as freely as milk ; but he told 
me that never in Europe or here was he in the habit of taking 
anything stronger than water. In my intercourse with him 
for a week I saw nothing in his life to disprove this statement, 

Mr. James Ford Rhodes said : 

The reports in circulation after the Battle of Bull Run, re- 
garding McDowell, are an instance of the hasty and unchar- 
itable judgment of newspapers and their readers. It was at 
once said that the Union defeat was due to McDowell's intoxi- 
cation. As a matter of fact McDowell never in his life drank 
a drop of beer, wine, or any alcoholic beverage, and curiously 
enough too did not use tobacco in any form. The proof of 
this is undoubted, but as part of it I may mention the positive 
assurances of Dr. William H. Russell, the American correspond- 
ent of the London Times, sometimes spoken of as " Bull-Run 
Russell," who knew McDowell well and saw him on the day 
of the battle, and of Colonel Franklin Haven, who served on 
his staff during the war. Dr. Russell told me that on the 
morning of the battle McDowell ate watermelon for break- 
fast, and the free indulgence in this succulent fruit made him 
ill, which was the sole foundation for the cruel report.^ 

^ Since my statement our associate Barrett Wendell has communicated to 
me this information : " Edmund Clarence Stedman, who was present at Bull Run 
as a reporter, told me that on the night before the battle McDowell, hungry 
after his preparation, was served at his supper with canned fruit, — I think 
peaches, — and ate heartily of them. The fruit was probably tainted and brought 
on an attack of cholera morbus, from which Stedman saw him acutely suffering 
while the battle was in progress." I have no doubt that this is a more accurate 
version than Russell's. 



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